John M. Kovac

Last updated
John M Kovac
Born25 October 1970
Nationality American
Alma mater Princeton University
University of Chicago
Known for BICEP2, BICEP and Keck Array
Scientific career
Fields Experimental Physics and Cosmology
Institutions Caltech
Harvard
Thesis Detection of Polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background using DASI
Doctoral advisor John Carlstrom

John Michael Kovac (born 1970) is an American physicist and astronomer. His cosmology research, conducted at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, focuses on observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to reveal signatures of the physics that drove the birth of the universe, the creation of its structure, and its present-day expansion. Currently, Kovac is Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Harvard University. [1]

Contents

Education and early life

Kovac was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He attended Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida. [2] He received a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Princeton University. He went on to the University of Chicago to receive a Masters and Doctorate in Physics in 2004. His thesis advisor was John Carlstrom.

Career

He was the principal investigator of the BICEP2 telescope, which was part of the BICEP and Keck Array series of experiments. [3] [4] [5] Measurements announced on 17 March 2014 from the BICEP2 telescope appeared to support the idea of cosmic inflation, by reporting the first evidence for a primordial B-Mode pattern in the polarization of the CMB. [6] [7] [8] Further analysis revealed this result to be spurious, and that the signal had been contaminated by interstellar dust in the Milky Way. [9]

Prior to BICEP2, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Kovac worked on the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer led by John Carlstrom, which in 2002 announced the first detection of polarization in the CMB. [10] In 2003, Kovac moved to Caltech as a Millikan Postdoctoral Fellow, beginning work under Andrew Lange on the QUaD telescope and on BICEP1, the predecessor of BICEP2. After BICEP1's deployment to the South Pole in 2006, at Lange's invitation Kovac joined the research faculty of Caltech as a Kilroy Fellow and led the team that proposed BICEP2. In 2009 Kovac joined the faculty at Harvard University. [11]

Awards

In 2013 Kovac received the National Science Foundation Career Award. [12] He was a recipient of the 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. [13] In 2011 Kovac was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow. [14] He was awarded the 2002–2003 Sugarman Award by the Enrico Fermi Institute.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical cosmology</span> Branch of cosmology which studies mathematical models of the universe

Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of fundamental questions about its origin, structure, evolution, and ultimate fate. Cosmology as a science originated with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on Earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed those physical laws to be understood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cosmic microwave background</span> Trace radiation from the early universe

The cosmic microwave background is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. It is a remnant that provides an important source of data on the primordial universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dark. However, a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope detects a faint background glow that is almost uniform and is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the radio spectrum. The accidental discovery of the CMB in 1965 by American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe</span> NASA satellite of the Explorer program

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), originally known as the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, was a NASA spacecraft operating from 2001 to 2010 which measured temperature differences across the sky in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the radiant heat remaining from the Big Bang. Headed by Professor Charles L. Bennett of Johns Hopkins University, the mission was developed in a joint partnership between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Princeton University. The WMAP spacecraft was launched on 30 June 2001 from Florida. The WMAP mission succeeded the COBE space mission and was the second medium-class (MIDEX) spacecraft in the NASA Explorer program. In 2003, MAP was renamed WMAP in honor of cosmologist David Todd Wilkinson (1935–2002), who had been a member of the mission's science team. After nine years of operations, WMAP was switched off in 2010, following the launch of the more advanced Planck spacecraft by European Space Agency (ESA) in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station</span> US scientific research station at the South Pole, Antarctica

The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction of the United States. The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at 9,301 feet (2,835 m) above sea level. It is administered by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, specifically the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). It is named in honor of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Briton Robert F. Scott, who led separate teams that raced to become the first to the pole in the early 1900s.

Observational cosmology is the study of the structure, the evolution and the origin of the universe through observation, using instruments such as telescopes and cosmic ray detectors.

In physical cosmology, the inflationary epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe when, according to inflation theory, the universe underwent an extremely rapid exponential expansion. This rapid expansion increased the linear dimensions of the early universe by a factor of at least 1026 (and possibly a much larger factor), and so increased its volume by a factor of at least 1078. Expansion by a factor of 1026 is equivalent to expanding an object 1 nanometer (10−9 m, about half the width of a molecule of DNA) in length to one approximately 10.6 light years (about 62 trillion miles) long.

<i>Planck</i> (spacecraft) European cosmic microwave background observatory; medium-class mission in the ESA Science Programme

Planck was a space observatory operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2009 to 2013. It was an ambitious project that aimed to map the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at microwave and infrared frequencies, with high sensitivity and small angular resolution. The mission was highly successful and substantially improved upon observations made by the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Pole Telescope</span> Telescope at the South Pole

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10-metre (390 in) diameter telescope located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. The telescope is designed for observations in the microwave, millimeter-wave, and submillimeter-wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, with the particular design goal of measuring the faint, diffuse emission from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The first major survey with the SPT—designed to find distant, massive, clusters of galaxies through their interaction with the CMB, with the goal of constraining the dark energy equation of state—was completed in October 2011. In early 2012, a new camera (SPTpol) was installed on the SPT with even greater sensitivity and the capability to measure the polarization of incoming light. This camera operated from 2012–2016 and was used to make unprecedentedly deep high-resolution maps of hundreds of square degrees of the Southern sky. In 2017, the third-generation camera SPT-3G was installed on the telescope, providing nearly an order-of-magnitude increase in mapping speed over SPTpol.

The Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI) was a telescope installed at the U.S. National Science Foundation's Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. It was a 13-element interferometer operating between 26 and 36 GHz in ten bands. The instrument is similar in design to the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) and the Very Small Array (VSA). In 2001 The DASI team announced the most detailed measurements of the temperature, or power spectrum of the Cosmic microwave background (CMB). These results contained the first detection of the 2nd and 3rd acoustic peaks in the CMB, which were important evidence for inflation theory. This announcement was done in conjunction with the BOOMERanG and MAXIMA experiment. In 2002 the team reported the first detection of polarization anisotropies in the CMB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gravitational-wave observatory</span> Device used to measure gravitational waves

A gravitational-wave detector is any device designed to measure tiny distortions of spacetime called gravitational waves. Since the 1960s, various kinds of gravitational-wave detectors have been built and constantly improved. The present-day generation of laser interferometers has reached the necessary sensitivity to detect gravitational waves from astronomical sources, thus forming the primary tool of gravitational-wave astronomy.

The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BICEP and Keck Array</span> Series of cosmic microwave background experiments at the South Pole

BICEP and the Keck Array are a series of cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. They aim to measure the polarization of the CMB; in particular, measuring the B-mode of the CMB. The experiments have had five generations of instrumentation, consisting of BICEP1, BICEP2, the Keck Array, BICEP3, and the BICEP Array. The Keck Array started observations in 2012 and BICEP3 has been fully operational since May 2016, with the BICEP Array beginning installation in 2017/18.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">POLARBEAR</span>

POLARBEAR is a cosmic microwave background polarization experiment located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile in the Antofagasta Region. The POLARBEAR experiment is mounted on the Huan Tran Telescope (HTT) at the James Ax Observatory in the Chajnantor Science Reserve. The HTT is located near the Atacama Cosmology Telescope on the slopes of Cerro Toco at an altitude of nearly 5,200 m (17,100 ft).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor</span> Microwave telescope array in Chile

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is an array of microwave telescopes at a high-altitude site in the Atacama Desert of Chile as part of the Parque Astronómico de Atacama. The CLASS experiment aims to improve our understanding of cosmic dawn when the first stars turned on, test the theory of cosmic inflation, and distinguish between inflationary models of the very early universe by making precise measurements of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over 65% of the sky at multiple frequencies in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atacama B-Mode Search</span>

The Atacama B-Mode Search (ABS) was an experiment to test the theory of cosmic inflation and distinguish between inflationary models of the very early universe by making precise measurements of the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). ABS was located at a high-altitude site in the Atacama Desert of Chile as part of the Parque Astronómico de Atacama. ABS began observations in February 2012 and completed observations in October 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Keating</span> American cosmologist

Brian Gregory Keating is an American cosmologist. He works on observations of the cosmic microwave background, leading the BICEP, POLARBEAR2 and Simons Array experiments. He received his PhD in 2000, and is a distinguished professor of physics at University of California, San Diego, since 2019. He is the author of two books, Losing The Nobel Prize and Into the Impossible.

Clement Laurence Pryke is an English-American physicist, focusing in astrophysics and cosmology, particularly on the cosmic microwave background.

LiteBIRD is a planned small space observatory that aims to detect the footprint of the primordial gravitational wave on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in a form of polarization pattern called B-mode.

Abigail Goodhue Vieregg is a professor of physics at the Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute of Cosmology, University of Chicago, specializing in neutrino astrophysics and cosmology. Her work focuses on cosmic high-energy neutrinos and mapping the cosmic microwave background.

References

  1. ↑ "Harvard Astronomy Department Website".
  2. ↑ Stockfisch, Jerome (19 March 2014). "Tampa education inspired head of Big Bang team". The Tampa Tribune . Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "BICEP2 Website".
  4. ↑ "Award Abstract #0742818 Collaborative Research: BICEP2 and SPUD - A Search for Inflation with Degree-Scale Polarimetry from the South Pole". NSF.
  5. ↑ "Award Abstract #1044978 Collaborative Research: BICEP2 and SPUD - A Search for Inflation with Degree-Scale Polarimetry from the South Pole". NSF.
  6. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (2014-03-17). "Space Ripples Reveal Big Bang's Smoking Gun". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  7. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (24 March 2014). "Ripples From the Big Bang". New York Times . Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  8. ↑ BICEP2 Collaboration, BICEP2; R Ade, P. A.; Aikin, R. W.; Barkats, D.; Benton, S. J.; Bischoff, C. A.; Bock, J. J.; Brevik, J. A.; Buder, I.; Bullock, E.; Dowell, C. D.; Duband, L.; Filippini, J. P.; Fliescher, S.; Golwala, S. R.; Halpern, M.; Hasselfield, M.; Hildebrandt, S. R.; Hilton, G. C.; Hristov, V. V.; Irwin, K. D.; Karkare, K. S.; Kaufman, J. P.; Keating, B. G.; Kernasovskiy, S. A.; Kovac, J. M.; Kuo, C. L.; Leitch, E. M.; Lueker, M.; et al. (2014). "BICEP2 I: Detection Of B-mode Polarization at Degree Angular Scales". Physical Review Letters. 112 (24): 241101. arXiv: 1403.3985 . Bibcode:2014PhRvL.112x1101B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.241101. PMID   24996078. S2CID   22780831.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ Cowen, Ron (30 January 2015). "Gravitational waves discovery now officially dead". Nature . doi:10.1038/nature.2015.16830. S2CID   124938210.
  10. ↑ Kovac, J. M.; et al. (Dec 2002). "Detection of polarization in the cosmic microwave background using DASI". Nature (Submitted manuscript). 420 (6917): 772–787. arXiv: astro-ph/0209478 . Bibcode:2002Natur.420..772K. doi:10.1038/nature01269. PMID   12490941. S2CID   4359884.
  11. ↑ Cowen, Ron (31 March 2014). "Cosmology: Polar star". Nature. Vol. 508, no. 7494. pp. 28–30. Bibcode:2014Natur.508...28C. doi:10.1038/508028a . Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  12. ↑ "John Kovac, Assistant Professor in Harvard's Astronomy and Physics departments, has been awarded the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award by the National Science Foundation" . Retrieved 2014-03-27.
  13. ↑ "The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers: Recipient Details: John Kovac". NSF.
  14. ↑ "Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-11. Retrieved 2014-03-27.
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